Preface
to Third Edition

PREFACE TO THIRD
EDITION

The first
two editions of this book were published in quick succession - July 1986
and July 1987 - because it was received with great interest and appreciation
by the Hindu intelligentsia at large, in this country and abroad.
But the present (third) edition has been delayed inordinately in spite
of persistent demand after the second edition went out of print in 1988.
A reprint of the second edition was not brought out because I wanted to
include in a new edition the copious materials which I had collected in
the meanwhile from orthodox collections of Hadis and which I thought worth
presenting to the readers. But that was not to be.

I had
finished reading the six authentic Hadis collections Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmizi,
Ibn Majah, Ibn Daud, Nasaii - which an orthodox Muslim organization had
published in several volumes each, with Arabic text and Urdu translation.
I had marked in the margins of several thousand pages the relevant references
pertaining to the five pillars of Islam, the character of the Muslim Ummah,
and the doctrine of jihAd. I had noted many stories which provide
the context in which particular
sUrahs and Ayats of the Quran
were �revealed�; they made it more than clear as to how Allah of the Quran
had functioned as a mouthpiece of the Prophet and even some of his companions.
But as I started sorting out the references and putting them together under
particular themes, I suffered a prolonged spell of illness which persists
even as I write these lines. So I wait and hope that I will be able
to resume the work at some future date.

Some of
the material included in the present edition had gone into the computer
in the winter of 1990-91. But a lot of new material has been added
during 1999. As this edition stands now, I think the reader will
find it better arranged and more informative.

The book
is still divided into two sections. The second section stands as
it did in the earlier editions except that it has been renamed as �The
Petition and the Judgment� instead of �Court Documents�. The first
section, however, has not only been renamed as �Introduction� instead of
�Preface�, but also carries new insertions, reflections and formulations
which have added as many as 50 more pages to it. Many new footnotes
have been added, and several new publications cited as the Bibliography
at the end goes to show.

The Second
Preface to the second edition has been retained intact except that now
it stands renamed as, �Preface to Second Edition�. But sections of
the First Preface to the second edition have been rearranged as chapters,
most of which have been revised, enlarged and renamed. Chapter 4,
�The Prophet sets the Pattern�, is entirely new. It is a summary
of the first orthodox biography of the Prophet, and provides a background
to the chapters that follow. Chapter 5, �The Orthodox Exposition
of JihAd�, has been enlarged with extensive passages from Tuhfat-ul-Mujahideen,
a sixteen century (CE) treatise on jihAd composed at Bijapur and
carrying many citations from orthodox collections of Hadis. In a
way, this part of the chapter fulfils to a certain extent my plan to present
Hadis materials vis-à-vis
jihAd. Chapter 6, �JihAd
in India�s History�, now includes
jihAds waged by Sher Shah Sur,
Akbar the Great Mughal, and Ahmad Shah Abdali. Many myths have been
floated about the �secularism� of Sher Shah and Akbar by Muslim and Stalinist
�historians� in recent times. Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, the architect of India�s I secularism�, has gone to the extent of
hailing Akbar as �the father of Indian nationalism� who �deliberately placed
the ideal of a common Indian nationhood above the claims of separatist
religion�. I hope the readers will draw their
own conclusions.

II

This book
is going to the press while the jihAd in Kargil is raging, and the
end is not yet in sight. The Hindu intelligentsia in India in general
and the present-day Hindu leadership in particular, has yet to show any
sign that they have learnt any lesson from what is essentially a renewed
contest between Islamic imperialism and Indian nationalism. On the
other hand, a realization seems to be dawning in the West, particularly
the USA, that Pakistan has become the foremost citadel of what they (the
West) prefer to describe as Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. I wish
to point out that Pakistan has not invented the Islam it is practising;
it has always been there in India (which is now known as Indo-Pak Subcontinent
or South Asia, but which is the same as the BhAratavarsa of hoary history)
since the eighth century CE. Let it be realized by everybody concerned
that India has always been and remains, the citadel of the most bigoted
and bloodthirsty zealotry of Islam. The historical reasons for why
it is so, are many. I do not have the time to detail them here. The
main reason may be told. Islam in India has been what it has been
because India has continued to stare at Islam as its greatest failure.
Islam in India has never been able to relax, as it could do in countries
which it converted completely. And it will not relax till Hindus
learn to knock out its ideological fangs which are rooted in the Quran.

New Delhi

Sita Ram
Goel

10 July 1999

Footnotes:

Glimpses
of World History, Fourth Impression, OUP, 1982, p. 306. I have
examined the �myth of Akbar� in The Story of Islamic Imperialism in
India, Second Revised Edition, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1994, pp.
99-103.